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Hosting a Dying Matters event (32 things to consider)

During Dying Matters Awareness Week 2015, DeadSocial ran a pop-up shop for the second consecutive year in Camden, London. DeadSocial Chief Executive and founder James Norris tells the story of why, what, where and how it came to be. He concludes with 32 things to think about when running your own Dying Matters event.

Overview

DeadSocial is an end of life tool that enables us to think about what will happen to our social networks when we pass away. The service also enables us to say "goodbye” to our friends and family by sending written (and recorded) messages to our personal Facebook and Twitter accounts. We fully support Dying Matters Awareness Week and have enjoyed getting more involved each year over the past two years.

Why

Running an event is hard work yet hugely rewarding for all involved. For the last two years we scheduled a week’s worth of events for our Dying Matters Awareness Week pop-up shop. We ran our own events and provided space for different brands and charities. Each organisation would take over the reins for an allocated amount of time and make it their own. By working together in this way, a wide range of topics were covered.

Above: the information table at DeadSocial's pop-up shop, which offered materials from Dying Matters and every organisation involved in the enterprise.

The benefits:

Raising awareness of death and dying while contributing to the noise generated by hundreds of other events across the UK.

Providing a service to the community.

Strengthening relationships with lots of contributing organisations.

Providing a creative and safe environment in which to discuss death and bereavement.

Attaining a better understanding of how we can serve the community.

Having fun!

Above: the 'LivInfographic’ art installation was created to brighten up an empty area in the pop-up shop.

What

We tried to make the pop-up shop as interesting and inviting as possible. When programming events, we aimed to ensure they addressed a range of areas and used as many different creative mediums as possible. In doing so, we reached a variety of demographics and needs.

Further information about the organisations, events and artists who collaborated with us in the pop-up shop can be found here

Above: the artwork displayed at our 2014 event was curated around the Dying Matters Awareness Week theme ‘You Only Die Once’. We received artwork from contributing artists across the UK, the USA and Finland.

Where

DeadSocial’s office is based in London's very cool Camden High Street (Above: Susan Morris from The Natural Death Centre campaigning outside the pop-up shop). Despite Camden’s long and creative history, it still has a thriving local residents' community encompassing both young and old.

It was important for us to run an event close to the office and give something back to the borough. We successfully applied to use one of the pop-up shops provided by the Camden Collective (more about the Camden Collective Pop-Up Shops can be found here).

If you do not have an office or your office isn’t easily accessible, you may want to consider using a community space instead.

Running a Dying Matters Awareness Week event: 32 things to consider

Dying Matters Awareness Week 2017 is from 8-14 May - save the date in your diary!

Start thinking about ideas early.

Ask your local parish, mosque, community centre, hospice etc about running a Dying Matters Awareness Week event in their premises

If you do not know where your local hospice is, use this handy find a hospice tool from Help the Hospices.

When you find a suitable space, make sure the venue knows you are hosting a not for profit event (they will hopefully provide it for free).

Think about putting on a Death Cafe. They are a great way to get people talking about death and often draw a sizeable number of people.

Print out direction signs and bring blue tack (if you are in a large venue).

Make sure that you are over, not under, staffed!

Don’t feel scared to call in favours from friends and family to help you run an event.

Consider asking local poets, artists, musicians etc (especially those who address death and bereavement) to get involved. Artists have a great reach and may also bring their own fans and followers.

Ask local businesses to sponsor the food and drink.

Marketing

It is paramount that people know about your event, otherwise how can they attend! The average rule of thumb when hosting events is that 50% of those who say they will come actually turn up, so if 20 people confirm their attendance you should expect 10.

Think about what your event will be about and who your intended audience is.

Consider the location of your event and the time of day it is being held when deciding what specific subjects you would like to address.

Add your event listing to the Dying Matters event listings portal (this is very important as it gives Dying Matters the opportunity to share your event with thousands of supporters across social networks).

Contact your local press. If you do not have a website or a blog with the event listing, direct them to the listing on the Dying Matters' website. If you use social media sites (like Facebook and Twitter) use them to announce your events publicly.

Use hashtags (like #BigConversation, #YODO #DyingMatters etc) on social media sites and your marketing material. Find out more about hashtags here. Include information in your staff newsletters and through internal work emails (ideally with permission from your line manager / boss).

Running your Dying Matters Awareness Week event

Make your event friendly and welcoming to everyone…

Offer free tea and cake (get baking at home to keep those costs down).